The Differences between Teacher-centered and Student-centered Instructional Strategies

The Differences between Teacher-centered and Student-centered Instructional Strategies

        Teacher centered instruction dictates that the teacher directs the learning. She may be delivering the lesson in presentation form to the whole class so everyone hears the same information all at once. The  teacher can accomplish this by giving a lecture, showing a video, or using an overhead. This method should be u when the information needs to be delivered to the entire class. This ensures that the entire class gets the same information. If the teacher needs to show the class how to process a difficult procedure; then she may use a demonstration to show the class. In an elementary school situation, the students may not be able to work with chemicals or items that may be harmful. The teacher may lead the instruction so the students will be exposed to the content of the lesson, but not be handling harmful elements. Another way a teacher may use teacher centered instruction is when a student or several students do not understand the lesson. She can take a small group and use direct instruction to re-teach the lesson using a different method. This method could include videos, a computer generated lesson, or maybe even step by step worksheets. That process ties in to another use of the teacher centered instruction, “drill and kill”. Named by students who feel like they are doing the same type of problem until they are killed by the repetition! Students often need to process a lesson a few times to make sure they understand the concept; math and spelling often use this process.

        Student centered instruction has the students at the center of the learning. A teacher may introduce a topic, but then she steps back and lets the students discuss and develop their own learning. Students are encouraged to pursue the topic and take it in different directions. A student may raise a question about the book they are reading. Instead of the teacher answering the question, the students discuss what they believe the author meant. Getting to the correct answer isn't always the goal in student centered instruction. Having the students develop communication and problem solving skills is often the goal. In implementing the new common core standards, the students need to be able to think at a higher level, problem solve and support their position by evidence found in the text. In order to develop these traits, students must be allowed to struggle and search for answers. When they get out of school, students won’t find many situations in life that come with a set of multiple choice answers. They must be able to think and determine solutions on their own.

         In the paragraphs above, different situations for the roles of the two different instructional strategies were discussed. When and how you would implement the differing strategies was developed. The main difference between teacher and student centered instructional strategies is who is at the helm, who is presenting the instruction. Teachers still need to plan and strategize on what lesson they want the students to learn, but in student centered instruction, they act more like a facilitator than a teacher. They are guiding the topic, but letting the students discover and determine where the lesson will go. Students learn by doing. Some of my most memorable lessons were when students discovered things on their own. They were much more excited when they discovered the answer and didn't need me to lead them.